Come closer.
This is where I get to be the person
I am. Odd and unnumbered.
My kitchen teeth. My sponge tongue.
My paper doll skin. Here is where
I unwind the coil
of my hands and string my bare
face up like a lantern. Look,
we're like a family of road flares.
Did we get your attention? See,
I'm shedding my last pair
of eyes. I'm not watching
the parade of strangers.
We have cotton socks
and warm soup and the sound
of helicopters circling has finally
faded back into the everyday hum.
We've stopped reading the papers.
Now we make up the headlines
we want to hear. News flash:
a garden snail is crawling
across the flagstone outside.
There is a hole in the word whole
you can fall into, and if
you're not careful, your sentences
can backfire like a muscle car
on the interstate of your mouth.
But if you wipe your feet
and shut the door, you can
come in. Welcome home.
House of Freaks by Nancy Miller Gomez | Pink Peony Poetry Reed Diffuser
$15.00Price
Nancy Miller Gomez (she/her) is the poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. She is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books), winner of the 2025 Patterson Poetry Prize, and Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series). Visit www.nancymillergomez.com to find out more.
